The Eurovision Song Contest 1987 was the 32nd Eurovision Song Contest and was held on May 9 1987 in Brussels, Belgium after Sandra Kim's win the previous year. The presenter was Viktor Lazlo. Johnny Logan was the winner for Ireland with his selfcomposed song Hold Me Now. That made him the first performer to win the contest twice, as he had won also in 1980.

Format

At the opening Viktor Lazlo sang the song Breathless. The 1987 Eurovision was the biggest contest at that time, with 22 countries taking part. Only Malta, Monaco and Morocco failed to compete out of all the countries which had entered the contest in the past. Due to the number of countries, and the time it took for the contest to be held, the EBU set the limit of competing countries to 22. This became problematic over the next few years as new and returning nations indicated an interest in participating, but could not be accommodated.

Controversy erupted in Israel after their song was selected, Shir Habatlanim by Datner & Kushnir. The comedic performance was criticised by the country's culture minister, who threatened to resign should the duo proceed to Brussels. They went on to perform for Israel, placing eighth; however the culture minister's threat was left unfulfilled.

It was the last time that there would be a physical prop for the scoreboard. All subsequent editions featured computerised graphics.

Umberto Tozzi & Raf

The United Kingdom achieved their lowest placing to date, when Rikki finished in 13th place with the song Only The Light.

Returning artists

Four artists returned to the contest this year. Gary Lux performed for Austria in 1983, 1984 and 1985, Alexia was a member of Island, who represented Cyprus in 1981, Wind represented Germany in 1985 and Johnny Logan won the ESC in 1980 on behalf of Ireland.

Possible Sovjet Union participation

In 2009 Eduard Fomin, a former employee of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, revealed that in 1987 George Veselov, the Minister of Education for the Soviet Union, brought forward the idea of a participation of the Soviet Union at the Eurovision Song Contest due to the number of political reforms made by the President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev during the late 1980s. The idea was mainly a political one, with the thought that a win in the contest for the Soviet Union would impact on the relationships between the Soviet Union and the capitalist countries of the west. Valery Leontyev was suggested as a name for the Soviet Union's first participation, however Veselov's ideas were not shared by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or by Gorbachev himself, believing it to be too radical a step to take, and so no Soviet participation was ever made. Ten former republics of the Soviet Union would later compete in the contest on their own in the 1990s and 2000s: Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, with five of the countries going on to win the contest.